Learn Hardcore Finnish: Kassalla kysytään, maksatko käteisellä vai pankkikortilla. - At the checkout they ask whether you pay in cash or by bank card.

The form kassalla is inessive-adessive type with the ending -lla (adessive case). Here it has a location meaning: “at the checkout / at the cash desk.”

kassa = checkout, cash desk
kassalla = at the checkout (literally “on/at the checkout”)

Compare:

kotona = at home
koulussa = at school, inside the school (inessive -ssa)
koululla = at/by the school (adessive -lla, more external)

So kassalla = at the physical place where you pay.

Why is it kysytään and not kysyy or kysyt?

Kysytään is the impersonal passive (often called “passive” in Finnish grammars).

Verb: kysyä = to ask
kysyy = he/she asks
kysyt = you (sing.) ask
kysytään = they ask / people ask / one asks / it is asked

Finnish uses this passive form very often to describe what generally happens or what people typically do, without saying exactly who “they” are.

So Kassalla kysytään… literally is like:

“At the checkout, (it) is asked…”
≈ “At the checkout, they ask…” / “You are asked at the checkout…”

Is kysytään present or future? English would probably say “you will be asked”.

Kysytään is in the present tense.

Finnish uses the present tense for:

current actions
general truths / habits
near future (if the time is clear from context)

Here it means something like:

“At the checkout, they (always) ask…”
and in English we might naturally say: “At the checkout, you will be asked whether you pay…”.

So there is no special future tense in Finnish; the present covers it.

How does maksatko work? Why isn’t it just maksat?

The base verb is maksaa = to pay.

maksat = you (sing.) pay
- stem: maksa-
- 2nd person personal ending: -t

To form a yes/no question, Finnish often adds the question clitic -ko / -kö to the verb:

maksat
- ko → maksatko = “do you pay / are you paying / will you pay?”

So:

maksat = you pay (statement)
maksatko = do you pay? (question)

In the sentence it’s an embedded question:

…maksatko käteisellä vai pankkikortilla.
= whether you will pay in cash or by card.

Where is the word for “you”? Why don’t we see sinä in the sentence?

Finnish usually drops subject pronouns when the verb ending already shows the person.

sinä maksat = you pay
In normal speech/writing: just maksat (the -t tells us it’s “you”).

So maksatko already includes “you” in its ending:

maksatko ≈ “are you paying / will you pay?”

You could say:

…kysytään, maksatko sinä käteisellä vai pankkikortilla.

That’s grammatically fine but sounds emphatic, like stressing you (as opposed to someone else). The neutral version simply omits sinä.

Why is there a comma before maksatko?

In Finnish, the part maksatko käteisellä vai pankkikortilla is a subordinate clause, more specifically an indirect yes/no question (the thing that is asked).

Finnish punctuation rules say that a subordinate clause is normally separated by a comma from the main clause:

Main clause: Kassalla kysytään,
Subordinate clause: maksatko käteisellä vai pankkikortilla.

English doesn’t always put a comma there, but Finnish almost always does in this kind of structure.

Why does the indirect question use -ko? In English we would say “ask if you pay…”.

Finnish handles indirect yes/no questions differently from English.

English:

They ask if you will pay in cash or by card.

Finnish:

Kassalla kysytään, maksatko käteisellä vai pankkikortilla.

Notice:

Finnish uses the same question form (with -ko/kö) inside the embedded clause as in a direct yes/no question:
- Direct: Maksatko käteisellä vai pankkikortilla?
- Indirect: He kysyvät, maksatko käteisellä vai pankkikortilla.

If you remove the -ko, the meaning actually changes:

He kysyvät, että maksat käteisellä.
= They ask that you pay in cash (a request),
not “They ask whether you pay in cash.”

So -ko/kö is crucial for the yes/no question meaning, even when it’s embedded.

What case is käteisellä, and why is that case used here?

Käteinen = cash (as a noun: physical money).
The form käteisellä has the adessive ending -lla/-llä.

Here adessive has an instrumental meaning:

käteisellä maksaa = to pay with cash / in cash

So:

käteinen = cash (basic form)
käteisellä = with cash (instrument)

English usually expresses this with a preposition:

pay with cash
pay by card

Finnish uses the adessive case instead.

And what about pankkikortilla? Why the same -lla ending there?

Pankkikortti = bank card (debit card, usually).
Pankkikortilla is also in the adessive case, like käteisellä, and again it has an instrumental meaning:

pankkikortilla maksaa = pay by bank card / with a bank card

So in the sentence:

käteisellä = with cash
pankkikortilla = with a bank card

The parallel structure makes the choice clear:

maksatko käteisellä vai pankkikortilla
= will you pay with cash or with a bank card?

Why is it vai instead of tai between käteisellä and pankkikortilla?

Finnish has two common words for or: vai and tai.

vai is used in questions when offering explicit alternatives:
- Maksatko käteisellä vai pankkikortilla?
- Will you pay in cash or by card? (which one?)
tai is used in statements and in questions where it’s not a sharp choice, or it can be “or possibly both”:
- Voit maksaa käteisellä tai pankkikortilla.
  = You can pay in cash or by card (or either is fine; not being asked to choose one to answer).

Since this is a (directly quoted) question about which of two alternatives is true, vai is the correct conjunction.

Could I say Kassalla kysyvät, maksatko käteisellä vai pankkikortilla instead of kysytään?

Yes, you could, and it’s grammatically correct:

Kassalla kysyvät, maksatko käteisellä vai pankkikortilla.

Here kysyvät is:

3rd person plural: “they ask”

The nuance:

kysytään (passive) = more impersonal, general rule: “At the checkout, they (typically) ask…”
kysyvät (3rd plural) = suggests specific people (the cashiers) do it; feels a bit more concrete and less rule‑like.

In many contexts they’re close in meaning, but the passive is more common for general “this is what happens” statements.

Can I move the parts around? Is Kysytään kassalla, maksatko käteisellä vai pankkikortilla also possible?

Yes, that word order is also possible:

Kysytään kassalla, maksatko käteisellä vai pankkikortilla.

Finnish word order is relatively flexible. Moving kassalla later just changes the focus slightly:

Kassalla kysytään…
→ Emphasis a bit more on the place “at the checkout, (what happens there is that) they ask…”
Kysytään kassalla…
→ Emphasis a bit more on the action “They ask (this), at the checkout.”

Both are natural; the original is a very typical way to start a sentence with a location phrase.

Could I say käteisellä vai pankkikortti without the -lla on pankkikortti?

No, that would be ungrammatical here. In Finnish, items in such a pair normally match in case:

käteisellä vai pankkikortilla
(both adessive: “with cash or with a bank card”)

If you said:

käteisellä vai pankkikortti

you’d have:

käteisellä (adessive)
pankkikortti (nominative)

They would no longer be grammatically parallel, and pankkikortti would just look like a bare noun “a bank card” with no clear role.

So you need pankkikortilla to match käteisellä in case and meaning.